he works of local and
international Indigenous
women screen-makers were
screened for an exciting night
celebrating their unique and
valuable contributions to screen
culture worldwide.
The SOLID SCREEN Festival
featured Queensland Murri
screen-makers along that of
others from around the country
and Native Canadian and Maori

interdisciplinary practitioners
from artforms such as animation,
performance art, documentary,
theatre and digital storytelling arts
backgrounds.
The event, which was free to
the public, is a consolidation to the
field of Indigenous Women Screen
Makers and is also a reciprocal gift
the local Far North Queensland
community. cyberTribe is marking
the 15th anniversary of exhibitions
and events and SOLID SCREEN
Festival has been shaped to
showcase and enhance the local,

national and international wealth
of creative talent in the variety
of artforms made by and for the
screen.
The SOLID SCREEN Festival
focuses on the professional
development and cultural safety of
women, and it is appropriate that it
is held in September, to mark the
Seven Sisters Dreaming, the star
formation that is in the sky at this
time of the year. The Seven Sisters
is a popular Aboriginal Dreaming
story based on a constellation
known to other cultures as well,

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like Matariki for Maori, Subaru in
Japan, Pleiades to the Greeks and
Madoo’asinug is the constellation
of the seven sweating stones or
“seven sisters” for Anishnawbe.
This story reminds us that having a
group of women who support and
encourage, can help to persevere
during times of stress. The SOLID
Screen Festival thanks goodness for
the sisterhood.
SOLID SCREEN Festival
director Jenny Fraser says the Far
North Queensland region needs a
lot of work to grow the Indigenous
Screen Industry, and sees the event
as a great opportunity for those
Indigenous practitioners interested
in exploring screen based mediums
of expression. She says the event
will also highlight some pertinent
issues for women screen-makers;
“Its a great way to spread the
word about Indigenous Womens
contributions to screen culture,
which is often hidden or takes a
back seat in supporting the work of
the male dominated industry”.
Those screening works on the
night included Darlene Johnson,
who has offered her iconic short
film titled Two Bob Mermaid.
Along with Murri practitioners
attending, Koori screen maker
Michelle Blakeney travelled from
New South Wales to introduce her
work A Lot of Lost Survivors for
the event. There were also some
introductions done by skype from
Penny Evans in Lismore, for her
film The Ab-Sorption Method, and
from Ariel Smith in Canada for her
music video called Target Girls.
Fraser founded cyberTribe
online gallery, which is marking
the 15th anniversary of exhibitions
and events this year. cyberTribe
is an unfunded online gallery
focused on nurturing digital and
experimental art, and has been
at the forefront of exhibiting
cutting edge and politically
important artworks and first hand
statements from Indigenous Artists
internationally, both online and
in other gallery spaces across the

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world. Over the years, cyberTribe
has brought together Indigenous
and other artists from places
across Australasia, the Pacific,
the Americas and elsewhere
to participate in exhibitions of
international standing.
Also launching on the night
as a new digital strategy for
cyberTribe this year, a new online
TV channel has been created for
24/7 broadcasting and access
internationally, with Australian
Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander screen culture at the centre.
Titled worldscreenculture.tv it is
a new home grown initiative to
strategically branch out in a new
direction. With a particular focus
on the promotion and development
of screen culture, this will be a
place to access documentation
and archives from screenings and
events, such as video and photos
from the recent Fringe Dwellers
commemorative screening and
BLAK RELEASE, both held in
Cairns , which is usually a place
left off the screen culture map.
This year SOLID SCREEN
Festival was a pre-conference
event for The Tropics of the
Imagination Conference, which
is a multidisciplinary conference
on imaginative and creative
approaches to culture and nature
in the tropics. The screening took
place at The Cairns Institute,
Smithfield Campus, Far North
Queensland.
Kicking off the tour on
Wednesday 16 September, the
SOLID SCREEN Festival also
featured the SOLID Awards for
Indigenous women in Screen, to
value women with long-standing
and also emerging careers in the
screen arts both in Australia and
overseas. The aim is to honour
women who have long standing and
emerging careers in the variety of
roles that make up the Screen Arts,
those who have cut a track here
and overseas. This is an important
way of acknowledging historically
significant contributions over the

past 30 - 40 years and also a very
rare opportunity to celebrate the
current outstanding practice offered
by Indigenous Women Screenmakers. This is the second year
of the SOLID SCREEN Awards
and categories this year include
Historically SOLID Screen Trail
Blazer, SOLID Contribution to
Photo Media, SOLID Screen
Storyteller, SOLID Screen Artist,
SOLID Screen Curator, SOLID
Screen Festival Director and
SOLID Arts Leadership.
The 2015 Historically SOLID
Screen Trail Blazer is a posthumous
Award that goes to Koori film
maker Essie Coffey who, in 1978
made My Survival as an Aboriginal,
which she gave to Queen Elizabeth
II as a gift at the opening of
Australia’s new Parliament House
in 1988. The film rocked Australia
and the world with its presentation
of atrocities and hardships
committed against Aboriginal
people. It delves beneath surface
appearances to reveal a strong
resistance to assimilation and loss
of identity, as the late Essie Coffey,
a Murrawarri woman, takes us
into the Aboriginal struggle for
survival. She documented the
effect of dispossession, the chronic
depression, alcoholism, deaths in
custody and poverty that were so
much a part of life for Aboriginal
people. The sequel, My Life As
I Live It, was released in 1993.
Coffey also appeared in the film
Backroads and in her later years,
Essie developed renal failure and
became the subject of the film Big
Girls Don’t Cry, by Aboriginal
filmmaker Darren Ballangarri. She
passed away on January 3rd, 1998.
Other SOLID Award winners
for 2015 are Koori photographer
Barbara McGrady who is a
Gamilaroi Murri yinah (woman)
from the north west of NSW
and Southern Queensland. A
Sydney based photographer,
Barbara’s images tell the story of
contemporary Aboriginal history
through her unique sociological

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eye. Barbara describes herself as
an observer and a protagonist - a
‘documentarian’ of historical events
that are important to Aboriginal
culture and people.
A SOLID Screen Maker Award
goes to Nanobah Becker who is a
member of the Navajo Nation and
received a BA in Anthropology
from Brown University. She
spent several years working with
Native youth both at the Navajo
Nation and in Albuquerque at
Southwestern Indian Polytechnic
Institute before deciding to pursue
filmmaking, and is now currently
living and working in Los Angeles,
California.
Another SOLID Screen Maker
Award goes to Tracy Rector a
Seminole/Choctaw film maker
based in Seattle. Tracy earned
her Masters in Education from
Antioch University’s First Peoples
Program. She specialized in Native
American Studies, traditional plant
medicine and documentary film.

Michelle Blakeney at The Cairns Institute

As the producer and director of
many award-winning films Tracy
has developed an awareness and
sensitivity to the power of media
and film as a modern storytelling
tool.
Maori actress Rena Owen will
receive the SOLID Contribution
to Screen Culture Award, as she
became one of New Zealand’s most
successful and recognizable Actors
on the international film platform
following her performance as Beth
Heke in Once Were Warriors and
for the last 10 years, Rena has
extensively toured the International
Film Festival circuit to promote
various Films, and also to serve on
Festival Juries. She has also served
as a Consultant for the Sundance
Screenwriters Lab. The SOLID Arts
Leadership Award goes to Screen
Womens advocate Whetu Fala also
from Aotearoa New Zealand, who
has produced, directed and edited,
hundreds of hours of television,
including drama, documentaries,

reality series and short films in
Aōtearoa New Zealand since
getting her start at Television NZ in
1988.
The SOLID SISTERS have
been invited to screen in Mexico
for the Festival de Cine y Video
Kayche’ Tejidos Visuales held in
Merida, Yucatan from September
27 - October 3. Jenny Fraser will
travel to Mexico, and also onto
Hawaii to present the SOLID
SCREEN Festival tour to Honolulu
to be hosted by Hawai’i Women
in Filmmaking in mid October,
then onto Aotearoa New Zealand
to present at Healing Our Spirit
Worldwide in November, which she
will be filming for a documentary
about SOLID SCREEN. “The
support for the SOLID SISTERS
from overseas has been truly
overwhelming and we are truly
excited and humbled to be able to
share the SOLID love and grow
the idea internationally” said Jenny
Fraser.